


The Guilt Between Us

by flipflop_diva



Category: Marvel Cinematic Universe
Genre: Angst, F/M, Post-Captain America: The Winter Soldier, Pre-Relationship
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2014-09-15
Updated: 2014-09-15
Packaged: 2018-02-17 13:34:49
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,865
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/2311454
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/flipflop_diva/pseuds/flipflop_diva
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>After blowing all her covers, Natasha needs somewhere to go. But why she went to him is a mystery even she doesn't know the answer to. Set immediately post-Captain America: The Winter Soldier.</p>
            </blockquote>





	The Guilt Between Us

**Author's Note:**

  * For [cirquedusorrel](https://archiveofourown.org/users/cirquedusorrel/gifts).



She didn’t hesitate until she was two feet away, and then she stopped, for the first time in twenty-four hours doubting every choice she had just made. She always knew exactly what she was doing and why. She always had a plan and a backup plan and five more backup plans beyond that.

But this. What _was_ she doing?

She could have stayed with Steve. It would have been easy. He wouldn’t have asked questions, and he would have welcomed her help. 

She could have gone to Clint. She knew where he was — he was probably expecting her — and they could have figured this out together.

She even could have gone to Tony. _He_ didn’t trust her, but Pepper did, and Pepper wouldn’t have let Tony turn her away, not after everything that just happened. She would have been safe there at least, had time to figure this out.

But yet she hadn’t done any of those things. Instead she came here, peering though a window and watching him work.

What had she even been thinking?

Maybe she was thinking that he was the only one who would understand.

•••

He felt her presence before she even said a word. It wasn’t that she had made a sound — of course she hadn’t. She was much too good for that — but he felt his skin prickle, and he knew before he turned around what he would find.

“Natasha.”

“Hello Bruce.”

“I didn’t expect to see you here.”

“I didn’t have anywhere else to go.”

He knew she was lying. But her gaze was steely. As always. She was dressed more casually than normal, though. Black pants, a beige jacket, the slightest glimpse of a black tank top underneath it. Her hair was straighter than the last time he saw her, a little longer. 

But the way she was looking at him …

“I thought I heard you were the one who chose to release all the info.”

“You heard right.”

“Thanks for that, by the way,” he said. “It’s so much easier to blend in now.”

Only her eyes flickered at that.

“It was the right thing to do,” she said simply.

He wanted to ask since when she cared about right and wrong. But he didn’t. He went another way.

“So now what?”

The pause was visible. Almost as if she were unsure of the answer.

“I thought I could …” 

He didn’t give her a chance to finish. 

“No,” he said. “It’s not safe.”

“No one followed me,” she said. “They don’t know you’re here.”

“Not safe for _you_ ,” he clarified, and this time he could tell she understood.

“I thought you could control …”

“Natasha,” he said. “I don’t want to hurt you.”

“You won’t,” she said. She raised her chin. A sign of defiance. “I don’t have anywhere else to go.”

Another lie. He stared at her, trying to figure her out. There was something she wanted, but he wasn’t quite sure.

But the look in her eyes …. 

He gave in. Against his best judgment, he gave in.

“Just for tonight.”

•••

This was probably her fault. 

Okay, it was most definitely her fault. She was the one who let the information loose (okay, that wasn’t all her fault. It was a mutual decision), and she was the one who came to him. If she could find him, she should have known someone else could find him too.

She had been careful, though. She kept to the shadows. She covered her tracks. But the gunshots ricocheting off the wall just millimeters above their heads told her she hadn’t done as good a job as she thought.

Maybe she was losing her touch.

That thought worried her, but she didn’t have time to think about it. She dove off the bed, hitting the floor, her pistols already in her hands, shooting at targets she couldn’t yet see.

She heard Bruce hit the floor on the other side of the room. She couldn’t see him, but she heard his voice.

“Stay down!”

She opened her mouth to protest, but the words died on her lips as the roar filled the small cabin. Something large filled the room, and then a hand was punching through walls.

She scrambled along the wall, away from The Other Guy.

She knew in the two years since she had first met him that Bruce had learned to control him. But that _monster_ that came out ...

With everything she had ever been through in her life, nothing had ever haunted her after the fact. Except that moment, in the bottom of the plane, a second away from death at the hands of the only person — _thing_ — she couldn’t manipulate.

Gunshots were ringing through the air now, faster and more furious. Whoever was after them really wanted to get them.

She leapt to her feet. She needed to see.

The front half of the room was now gone, and she could see figures in the dark. The Hulk was veering off toward the left. She took the right. She could see three men. Three guns.

She ran straight at one, pistols aimed at the other two. She saw one get hit before her feet struck the first one, hard, in the gut, sending him flying. She rolled out of the way, swinging her foot out, knocking over another.

A flare whizzed by her ear. She pounced at the third, landing on his back, her arms wrapped around his neck.

He struggled to get her off. She gripped tighter. 

Behind her, she could hear the commotion and the roars and the gunfire, and she heard the stuttered screams as The Hulk sent people flying.

And then the first guy, the one she thought she had taken out, was getting to his feet.

She wrapped her arms tighter around the guy she was attached to, needing to take this one down, and quickly.

She didn’t realize how far they had traveled, not until the roar came from right beside her.

She looked up.

The Hulk.

Staring at her.

She froze.

“Bruce?” she whispered.

And then she was flying through the air, no longer attached to the enemy she had been struggling with.

She hit something hard. And the world went black.

•••

They were the last two people Tony expected to find waiting for him, but yet there they were. One pensive-looking man and a half-dazed looking woman.

Tony studied them. Bruce was panting and he looked like he might have gotten dressed in the dark. Natasha was covered in dirt, and the bruise darkening on her forehead was too big to be covered by her hair.

“Did you two get in a wrestling match?” Tony asked wryly.

“We’re sorry,” Bruce said. “We … I … weren’t sure where else to go.”

Tony cocked his head. “And so I’m the safehouse for Avengers now?”

Bruce shrugged. “You said I could drop by any time. This is any time.”

“Fine,” Tony said. “But you know you’re going to have to tell me what happened, and if whatever happened comes here, I’m not going to be pleased.”

“Got it,” Bruce said. “It’s a deal.”

Natasha just nodded.

An hour later Tony was studying Bruce over the rim of his scotch. The firefight Bruce described was the least interesting part to Tony. Someone was always after someone, and whether this someone was after Bruce or Natasha, he wasn’t sure. Nor did he care at the moment.

He did care about something else. Namely the way Bruce kept shifting his eyes and not looking at him.

Tony set his drink down.

“Now tell me what really happened,” he said. 

“I told you.”

“No. You told me something. You didn’t tell me the real reason you’re here.”

“I told you …”

“You could have gone anywhere,” Tony continued, as if Bruce had never said a word. “But you came here. I’m going to guess it’s because you wanted to be around someone else you knew. The question is why.”

Bruce studied him for a moment, and then he sighed. “You’re smart,” he said. “I’m sure you can figure out why.”

Tony pressed a finger to his chin and pretended to give it some thought. The truth is he suspected it from the first second he saw them. The way they stood side-by-side but purposely avoided each other.

The way Natasha didn’t say anything at all, even when Pepper led her off to get a shower.

“I take it,” Tony finally said, “the bruise on her head didn’t come from these unnamed enemies.”

Bruce looked away quickly.

“I don’t want to hurt her,” he said quietly.

“I’m guessing it was an accident.”

“Of course it was! One of them had a gun pointed at her _head_. The Other Guy was aiming at him. He just missed.” Bruce’s voice broke off at the end.

“I’m sure she won’t hold it against you.”

“I’m not good for her.”

“Well,” Tony said, “I think you should let her be the judge of that.”

•••

“I’m sorry.”

It was the only thing he could think to say, now that they were alone together, standing side-by-side in front of a window, for the first time since they had arrived at Stark’s. They hadn’t really talked since it happened. There hadn’t been time to talk.

The feeling inside him when he saw her fly through the air, when she hit the tree and just fell. When she didn’t move again.

He just picked her up and ran. When she finally came to, somewhere outside New York, he was Bruce again. 

“I know where we can go,” he’d said, and she had let him support her until she was steady enough to do it on her own.

But now …

“I’m sorry,” he repeated when she didn’t say anything.

“I know.” She turned her head to look at him and gave him a lopsided smile. “It was an accident.”

“I thought I could control Him …”

She placed a hand on his arm. He started at the coolness of her touch. The warmness that spread through him.

He moved her hand off of him.

“It shouldn’t have happened,” he said.

“It was an accident,” she said.

“I’m not good for you.”

“It was an accident.”

She went to touch him again, but again he moved away from her.

“I should go,” he told her, and he hoped she knew he didn’t mean just right now.

Her eyes flickered.

Yup, she knew.

He turned away from the window. She almost tackled him.

Yeah, she was fast.

Her arms locked around his neck and her lips were on his before he could think.

“Natasha,” he whispered.

“It was an accident,” she murmured.

He pulled away from her. “If I stay, I might hurt you.”

“If you leave, you might hurt me more.”

Her eyes flickered again. That look …

“Natasha … “

She took his hand. “Just stay.”

Every nerve in his body screamed to leave. He knew what would happen if he stayed.

“Why are you doing this?”

“Why not? Maybe I need this.”

It wasn’t a reason. He wondered if she even had one. Or if it even mattered.

She kissed him again. He decided maybe it didn’t matter.

He stayed.


End file.
